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Saturday, April 18, 2015

Last summer
a friend of mine told me that she had written a book that had just been
published under the title Losing Sight,
Gaining Vision. Sheridan Gates has a
form of macular degeneration the onset of which happened when she was quite
young.Her adult life has been a
progressive adjustment to the gradual loss of sight.

I
immediately got and read her book. In
recounting her steady loss of vision, she writes about how she learned to
listen to her body.Little by little she
learned to shift from seeing her loss of vision as a liability to seeing it as
a gift.Sheridan began to see herself
not as a victim of illness, but rather as a healer.And healing for her and through her for
others has taken the form of learning how to embrace her body, learning that
though it was losing the capacity to see, the body was learning a new way to
have vision.The body has its own
wisdom.[1]

For the
last three years I have been on a pilgrimage to explore ever more deeply what
the resurrection of the body actually means.Sheridan’s book, and more recently Sheridan herself, have helped me in a
process of what she and I call “spiritual coaching” to grasp that resurrection
of the body is a way of life.It is a
way of embracing the body, of listening to it, of taking seriously that it may
be not an impediment to spiritual life but indeed the key to it.

I believe
that affirming the body is the central point Luke wants us to get in the gospel
for today.The risen Jesus has appeared
on the road to Emmaus to two disciples who are discussing the events that ended
his life—and the strange tale that some women of their group had told about
going to the tomb and learning that his body was missing.The wayfaring stranger proceeds to explain
all the things concerning himself that the scriptures had foretold.Still the two disciples do not recognize
him.They invite him in to dine with
them when they have reached Emmaus.While he is at table with them, he—the guest—takes bread and blesses and
breaks it.Then their eyes are opened,
and they recognize him just before he vanishes.They rush back to Jerusalem and tell the Eleven and their companions
what they have experienced and hear from them that it is true:the Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon
Peter.Suddenly Jesus comes and stands
among them, saying, “Peace be with you.”They are terrified, thinking they are seeing a ghost.He invites them to look at his hands and
feet, saying that a ghost does not have flesh and bones as he does.While they are still wondering and
disbelieving for sheer joy, he asks them for something to eat.They give him a piece of broiled fish, which
he takes and eats right before them.

Whatever
else may be said of this story, it quite clearly establishes four things.One is that the resurrection body of Jesus is
not to be confused with his spirit in
a non-physical appearance: he is not a ghost.Second, the resurrection body is not a resuscitated corpse, because he
is able to appear and vanish at will, regardless of space, time, and
circumstances.Third, there is continuity
between Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified and the risen Jesus, inasmuch as
the resurrection body bears the scars of his passion and death.Fourth, a transformation has taken place,
because, though the body belongs to Jesus, it has changed to the point that he
is not readily recognizable.

Now we will
never know until we get to the great seminar in the skies exactly what happened
to Jesus between his death on Friday and sunup on Sunday.But one thing is for certain.Something happened to the physical body of
Jesus.And thus any resurrection we want
to talk about has to do with the physical
body, our physical bodies.And we
know well enough what is going to happen to them, don’t we?They are going to die; and one way or the
other they are going to return to the stuff out of which they came:earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to
dust.But the church has been letting
itself off the hook of talking about the physical body for too long by
transmuting resurrection into immortality.The issue of what happens after death might be of great importance, but
the more important thing is what the resurrection means for this life, here and
now.Even the most devoted believer in
an afterlife, of whatever kind, will tell you that what happens there is
directly tied to what we do here.From
that I conclude that it is wise to make a short list of things not to worry
about and put afterlife first on that list.Concentrate on living life joyfully, lovingly, gratefully, kindly, and
the afterlife, whatever shape it takes, will take care of itself.You have my word on that.

So what
does the resurrection have to do with this
body, yours and mine?Well, first,
remember your baptism.What do we
remember when we forget everything else about baptism?It is “down under and back up again.”It is a ritual death and resurrection.(We are in the land of metaphor and symbol
here.)When we are, as it were, pulled
up out of the water we are united with the Risen Lord in the resurrection.Yes, it has a future, that resurrection life,
beyond our mortal death.But it
certainly does not wait for death in order to begin.So whatever we do with our life in Christ we
do in the very body that is speaking and listening to these words right
now.

Let’s be
honest.For centuries Christians have
distrusted the body, sidelined it, repressed it, despised it, all on the theory
that the body is a great big problem for anybody wanting to live a spiritual
life.So we have been quite good at
developing rationales for asceticism, denying our physical selves for the sake
of becoming spiritually disciplined.We
have a whole gallery of people whom we honor and pretend we want to
emulate—virgin mothers and other virgins, desert fathers and mothers, saints of
one kind or another who practically lived as if the physical body was of no
importance whatsoever.None of that, by
the way, do we see reflected in Jesus, who by his own admission came, “eating
and drinking” with all manner of folk, to the point that people accused him of
being a glutton and a winebibber.Yes,
he fasted and prayed, but we have no record that he spurned the body that he
lived in.That body prayed, fed, healed,
taught, walked, loved, ate, drank, sweated, slept, dreamed, and all the other
things (you know what they are) that bodies do, and finally died.And all of it, all of it, was life as God, in
God, with God, and for God.So what gets
in the way of our living like that?

We have not
only some Christian history to reckon with, but a good deal of secular history
as well.And generally that has led us
in two directions, sometimes almost indistinguishable.One is to believe in the exaggerated
importance of the body.The other is to
repress it and all that is associated with it, especially its sexual dimensions.And here is where resurrection can actually
help us.Resurrection is the radical
affirmation of the physical, the assertion that the Creator knew exactly what
the Creator was doing by making a universe where matter and spirit (energy) are
not opposed, but indeed two different manifestations of the same reality.We do not have to repress the body, even as
we are disciplining it.You can diet,
exercise, do yoga, martial arts, and engage in a host of other beneficial
disciplines, all without disparaging your body.More than that, you can actually keep the second of the two great
commandments—you can love yourself as you love your neighbor.And you do not have to be ashamed of or
embarrassed about doing so; for in loving your body you are loving the greatest
gift that your Creator has given you.At
its best, it can be the portal of delight you can only describe as divine.

And you can
affirm your body as mortal.Wherever you
are in life right now, your body is on its way to the grave.That has been true all your life.Get used to it.On that list of things not to worry about,
add “my death.”Doing away with anxiety
and fear of death is not so easily done as said, but it can be done.It takes practice.Take a tip from Sheridan.Don’t imagine that your body’s loss means
your own diminishment.You may very well
gain vision as you lose eyesight, or gain comprehension as you lose the faculty of
hearing.

Ironically, the more we accept and honor our
physical, mortal bodies, the more we are free to let go of the useless and
neurotic effort to stave off their death. And the more we let go, the
more ready are we to move into the joy of a life unencumbered by fear, powered
only by love. Living that way is living the resurrection. Life powered by love is the
Kingdom of God, where there is no more sorrow nor sighing nor repression,
because the sting of death is gone, and there is no need to repress anything
anymore.

Monday, April 06, 2015

“Go, tell
his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee.There you will see him, just as he told you.”

And where
is Galilee?

Galilee is
where it all began.The calling. The
healings.The teaching.The small towns full of hungry, hurting
people.The crowds.Controversy.Feeding.Misunderstanding.Clueless disciples.Smart demons.“Galilee” is where life is lived.Whatever he was and wherever he came from, Jesus of Nazareth joined the
human race in its everyday life of growling stomachs and dead children and
quarrels.And it is right back to
Galilee that the risen Jesus returns.

You will
notice of course, that Mark’s story of the resurrection is not what you
sometimes hear, and lacks some of the elements we’ve come to expect. No conventional angels here with bright
wings. No long and moving story of Mary
Magdalene and him whom she supposed to be the gardener. No appearances of the risen Christ. Only a declaration that he has been raised
and two promises—that he is going ahead and that they shall see him in
Galilee. Was it the messenger in the
tomb that affrighted the women so? Or
the message? Or the peculiar absence of
the corpse whom they sought? We only
know that they ran from the tomb and told no one anything.

End of
Mark, but not end of story.Galilee is
still there, not only as beautiful real estate on the rim of the Sea by that
name, but as a place in your life.Galilee of the Nations, the place where the crowded ways of life cross,
the intersection of all sorts of journeys.Galilee is where you live.Galilee is in your heart.And if
you would discover the timeless Christ, the Author of life and the ground of
Being, you will discover him in the thick of your life.

Is there no
other option?Can we not wait at the
tomb and hope that somehow he will appear?Can’t we look backward into the past and do our best to recover the
faith of a prior generation and claim that as our own?Can’t we take a course in God and become
mystical or find him with crystals or incantations?Try.But I think you’ll find that the Risen One will most likely show up in
the details of your life.It is
precisely where you hurt, where you resist growth, where you are whiplashed in
controversy, where you are passionate, where your heart leads you, what moves
you to tears, what causes you to roll on the floor laughing, what excites you
and what takes your breath away—those things are the Galilee where you will see
him.

Maybe you
are thinking just for a split second that, if that is the message, you might
just turn and run from it, so frighteningly mundane it sounds.We frequently believe that the spiritual
life must be something special, so out-of-the-ordinary that we could not
possibly find it where we are.So we
suppose that, if we are working in a law office in Washington, we should resign
and go feed the poor.Or the monk in the
monastery imagines that Christ is more really to be found among the
homeless.Changing the set is never the
issue.Nor, for that matter, is changing
one’s mind.It is a matter of going to
Galilee as agenda-free as possible.You
have no idea where Christ is going to appear, nor how that appearance might
change you, nor where the encounter might take you or send you.

But the Galilee to which he has gone ahead is whatever is
going on in your life.If you need to
change, you will know.If you need
simply to speak your truth, you will know.If you need to struggle with the pit of uncomfortable truth in the
middle of your soul, you will know that too.Learn to listen to your life.Whatever it turns up, pay attention.For there in Galilee you will see him, as he promised.

For over four decades now I have tried on every Good Friday
to get my mind around the crucifixion.
Pondering it once again, I recalled my first Holy Week when I was a
priest. A little girl, Beth, started
sobbing as the choir filed out in silent, funereal procession. She was inconsolable well after the liturgy
ended. “Why did he have to die?” she
kept asking her mom. “Why? Why?”

Inexplicable cruelty. Beth’s question echoed the first time
I watched The Color Purple, when Mister,
Celie’s abusive husband, drives away Celie’s sister and best friend,
Nettie. Screaming at the horror of being
forcibly separated from the one she loves most deeply of all on earth, Nettie
cries, “Why? Why? Why?”
So ask we all at every fresh horror, every mass murder, every appalling
miscarriage of justice.

The formulas that Christians say so easily do not work for
me. “He died for our sins.” I do not doubt the truth of that. But it does not answer the deep and painful
cry of why? Why was it necessary? How do you figure? What kind of God would require it? “It was all part of God’s plan.” No doubt. But why?
Why make a plan that requires such terror? And what is the point? That we should love Jesus because we hope for
the heaven he opened to us by means of his death? That we might die a worse death than the
cross if we were to turn away in disbelief or rejection? Does that ring true for you? So what to make of this sacred head sore
wounded, this man despised and rejected, this man of sorrows, acquainted with
grief? How do we get to the place where
we can make sense of the notion that we are healed by his wounds, that we are
saved through his murder on the cross?
What does it mean for us to venerate the cross, to call it holy, to say
that by it joy has come into all the world?

There is no explaining the cross. It is a paradox, a mystery. It is unspeakable cruelty, tragedy, and
injustice that at the same time oddly reveals to us the nature of courage, of
humility, even of glory—and most of all, love.
There is no one right way to respond to the cross. You may find on Jesus’ cross God joining
suffering humanity. You may find it
wringing tears of thanksgiving from the depths of your soul. You may find it indescribably repugnant,
bespeaking the worse that humans can do to one another, to creation, and to
creation’s Author. Or you may turn it
into a piece of jewelry or a tattoo that identifies who you are and what you
stand for.

There is a Spanish hymn from long ago that few sing any
more, the verses of which voice what seems to me to be one other possible
response to the Cross. It has come to be
one of my life texts. It does not
resolve the paradox of the cross, nor answer the question of why. But the words suggest a way to ponder the
mystery in a way that unhooks it from any facile explanation of Christ’s
suffering, leaving us only to behold it and see, possibly, the cross from a new
and untried view with every passing season.

Frank Gasque Dunn

About Me

I am a spiritual guide (a “soul friend”), offering coaching, counseling, and support to individuals and organizations. I founded and am Executive Director of Jonathan’s Circle, a non-profit organization enabling men to realize wholeness connecting sex and spirit. Read more at thesoulinyou.com.
I was for twelve years Senior Priest of St. Stephen and the Incarnation Episcopal Church, Washington, DC. Prior to that I led parishes in North Carolina, Connecticut, and Virginia.

Welcome to The Book of Common Moments

On this blog I reflect on common moments. Some of those reflections are sermons and other things I have shaped for oral communication. Some are more precise reflections on incidents in mine and others' lives. Some are poems, short stories, essays. I invite you to join in the dialogue.

All our stories amount to an infinite number of variations on a handful of great themes. Becoming conscious of our stories is perhaps the biggest adaptive challenge for human beings. When we begin to know what stories we are telling and living, we stand a better chance of choosing those stories that are true.

Do not believe it because someone said it, or because it is in a book, or because you read it on the internet, or because that is what you were taught in school, church, temple, or Boy Scouts. Believe it only when you have tested it in your own life and find that you can affirm it in the deepest part of your soul.

Destiny

Your soul knows the geography or your destiny. Your soul alone has the map of your future, therefore you can trust this indirect, oblique side of yourself. If you do, it will take you where you need to go, but more important it will teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey.